What Alone Australia taught me about Experience
Ten people arrive in Arctic Finland. Before the first episode even begins, I started trying to predict who will win. I looked at their experience: military, survival, fishing, hunting, endurance, bushcraft, even previous Arctic experience. Who has the best preparation? But as the series progressed, something strange happened. The more I learnt about the contestants, the less […]
When Your Way of Working Stops Working with Dr Patterson Stark
What happens when the way you’ve learned to succeed is no longer a way you’re willing to live? After a life-threatening illness, Dr Patterson Stark didn’t simply recover and return to his old working life. He stayed away from clinical practice for 16 years. He was afraid that going back would mean returning to the […]
What Travel Taught Me About Experience
Several decades ago I was on a bus trip winding through the Black Hills of South Dakota on the way to Mount Rushmore. On board were twenty-four students from eighteen different countries. It was my first time travelling overseas and my first time spending extended time with people from so many different cultures. I found myself […]
Why Adults Become Sixth Graders with Linda Gidlund
Put a group of successful, educated adults into a training room and something strange can happen: They start behaving like sixth graders. Educator and facilitator Linda Gidlund began noticing this pattern while working with adult learners. Then she noticed something similar happening much closer to home. What is it about certain environments that can bring […]
What Mick Jagger Taught Me About Experience
I was listening to David Marchese interview Mick Jagger for The New York Times Interview when one word stopped me: Inhabit. Marchese didn’t ask whether Jagger could still perform songs he’d written fifty years ago; he asked whether he could still inhabit them. That caught my attention because it felt like an unusual but very […]
Why His Professor Told Him to Skip Class with Michael Henderson
Michael Henderson’s anthropology professor gave his students some unusual advice: “If you find an interesting cultural experience, go and do that… and don’t come to my lectures.” Michael took him seriously. Unable to understand reggae music, he forced himself to keep listening. What happened next changed the way he thought about learning, culture and experience […]
Why Information Doesn’t Change People with Dr Patterson Stark
Why is it that we often know exactly what to do… but still don’t do it? Dr Patterson Stark spent years believing that if his patients simply had enough information, they’d make better decisions. Experience taught him otherwise. In this short conversation, he reflects on the shift that changed not only the way he practises medicine, […]
What an Assassin taught me about Experience
In The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne has no idea who he is. He has amnesia, which means he doesn’t remember his past and can’t figure out why someone wants to kill him. Yet, when he sits down in a roadside cafe he casually says: “I can tell you the license plate numbers of all three cars […]
Why Good People Misunderstand Each Other with Taruni Falconer
When I sat down to speak with intercultural communication expert Taruni Falconer, I expected to learn about culture. Instead, I found myself rethinking communication itself. Why I invited Taruni Falconer When I created On Experience, the first person I wanted to invite was Taruni. She exudes the three qualities I want in my guests: she […]
What a Doctor taught me about Experience
Most people think experience gives us answers, but what happens when our experience fails to answer our questions? When it makes it impossible to continue believing what we know. That’s what happened to Dr Patterson Stark. Patterson was a successful physician in La Jolla, California. He had a waiting list, money in the bank and […]